


And Supergirl Makes Three

by bossbeth



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Humor, a meditation on polyamory, like ya do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19717873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossbeth/pseuds/bossbeth
Summary: Lena Luthor is dating Kara Danvers. Not Supergirl. Right?(My contribution to You Are My Hero 2019, the Supercorp zine.)





	And Supergirl Makes Three

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for You Are My Hero 2019, the Supercorp zine, in support of The Trevor Project and Transgender Law Center. It's a silly piece for a noble cause, and I feel grateful for having the chance to participate with so many talented creators. Much love to my trans and nb siblings!

All in all, it was probably for the best that it happened on a Friday night. That meant Kara had the whole weekend to process what exactly went down.

Kara knew something was up first thing that morning. Snapper was filled with new and different manic energy all day. More than once, Kara caught him staring at her too long with an unreadable expression on his face. Every time she smiled brightly, gave a little wave - and he immediately became very occupied with whatever document, computer, or plant was nearest to him.

She wound up working late finishing her article on the school bond - maybe that was why he was eyeing her? Was she that behind? Deadline was end of day, and she was certainly pushing the limits of the phrase, but she was getting it done.

When the two of them were the last on the floor, he drummed up the nerve to call her into his office. That in of itself wasn’t abnormal. But the heavy way he closed the door was abnormal, as was the genuinely pained expression on his face. When he finally looked her square in the eye, the purest pity radiated from him.

“Sir, is everything okay?”

It took him a long moment to say, “Take a seat, Kara.”

And then they had one of the worst conversations of Kara Danvers’s life.

-+-

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“It was,” said Kara, collapsing onto her sofa next to Lena with a pained groan. “I would rather eat a bag of chocolate-covered kryptonite.”

“Well, tell me about it.” Lena leaned an elbow on the back of the sofa, supporting her head with her palm as she stared at her girlfriend. “What happened?”

Kara let out her breath in a long huff. “He started by telling me he knew what it felt like.”

“He knew what what fell like?”

“Being cheated on.”

For the briefest moment, Lena felt the walls press in on her, and anxiety coiled cold and solid in her stomach. “Excuse me? What does  _ that _ mean?”

“No! God, no, I mean, that’s... I know you didn’t..!” Panic bloomed across Kara’s face. “I know you would never... I love you, I know you love me. That is not what this is.” She gripped Lena’s free hand, an air of vague desperation to the gesture. “You see, he thought... It’s just that... Someone took photos of us.”

Anxiety battled confusion now in Lena’s gut, coming out in a rapid babble. “Damned paparazzi. I’m sorry, Kara, it’s part of being a Luthor. And to be dating a reporter, it’s too enticing...”

“No,” interrupted Kara. “They’re not photos of you and Kara Danvers.” She cleared her throat, squeezing their clasped hands a little tighter. “They’re photos of you and Supergirl.”

Lena froze. “What? No, I don’t... Ah. The park?”

Kara relinquished their handhold to fully smoosh both her hands into her face. “No.”

“....the rooftop?”

“No!”

Lena flipped through her mental schedule of the last week, increasingly mortified by the range of pecks-to-smooches she had given a certain caped crusader. “I am not as discreet as I think I am.”

“No, neither of us are,” moaned Kara between her hands. “Someone went to CatCo with the photos. Actual photos. Like, on film.”

“A good old fashioned creep,” said Lena. “Well, that means negatives that can be destroyed, versus data in the cloud forever. That’s good.”

“No, it’s awful!” said Kara, miserable.

“...okay?”

“Because they took them to Snapper!” The name held extra urgency in Kara’s pained state. “I mean, why they thought a paper that you owned would run photos of you in a compromising position, I don’t know. Maybe they thought you would pay more? But whatever reason, to CatCo they went, and Snapper saw them, and he bought them immediately, and called me into his office.”

“Right.”

“Because my girlfriend was seen kissing Supergirl.”

Lena stared at Kara, comprehension creeping in to the corners of her mind. “And to people who don’t know  _ you’re _ Supergirl...”

“It looked like you were cheating on me!” Kara let out a low moan. “With  _ me _ , yeah, but no one knows that!”

Lena breathed a sharp exhale. “Well. That is. A development.”

Kara pressed her fingers harder into her eyes.

“What did you tell him?”

“Snapper was like... So sad for me. He was looking at me... I’ve never seen him look at me like that before!” Kara rolled her head against the back of the sofa, hands held to the ceiling with emphasis. “He looked at me like I was a runty puppy, with mange, in the rain, that just got stung by a bee.  _ That _ degree of pity. The ‘poor dingus’ vibe was just rolling off of him in waves. He doesn’t always treat me like an adult anyway, and here he was treating me like the most pathetic person he’d ever seen.”

Lena patted Kara on the shoulder, pouting with faux empathy. “Poor thing. I’m so sorry he cares so much about you as to express sympathy that your hot girlfriend is cheating on you.”

“No, you don’t understand. He really was like... feeling for me,” Kara clarified desperately.”

“Sounds awful.”

“No, like, REALLY feeling for me.” Kara squinted her eyes closed at the memory. “He started telling me how he’d been there, that his first ex wife had cheated on him with his photographer. He started telling me about it. In detail.”

Lena settled her cheek against the arm she rested on the back of the sofa, to better soak up Kara’s discomfort. “Uh huh.”

“And then he started telling me how his second wife cheated on him with his brother. Way more detail than I needed, ever. The phrase ‘in flagrante’ was thrown around, and then he started clarifying  _ how _ in flagrante, and he had this thousand yard stare on his face that made it clear we were settling in to a sharing session. But I needed it to stop. Immediately.”

Lena felt they were beginning to arrive at the true source of Kara’s discomfort. “Yes?”

“So I told him, it’s not what you think.”

Lena laughed. “Okay. How did you explain it to him? That I just occasionally give Supergirl’s tonsils an oral examination?”

“One,” Kara held up a finger between them, “that’s an awful way to describe a wonderful thing. And two, I didn’t think of anything. I just... blanked. And told him, I couldn’t tell him what it was, but that it wasn’t what he thought.”

Kara paused, stewing in her misery.

“...and?” Lena nudged.

“And he like... Realization just dawned across his face. And he asked if we were  _ open _ .”

Lena leaned forward, delighted. “Snapper! I’m shocked he had the vocabulary.”

“I didn’t even think about what I was saying. I was just so relieved that he wasn’t looking at me like the loseriest loser in the history of losing, or trying to express... solidarity... that I told him yes.”

Lena thought for a moment about Kara’s very conventional heterosexual romantic history and said delicately, “Kara, you know he meant  _ open _ open? Like, as in -”

“As in I had... We had an understanding.” Kara turned beet red. “And you were dating Supergirl. And me. As in, you’re dating both of us.”

Lena felt her brows go up. “Oh, Kara.”

“He said it was very millennial of us.”

“Oh  _ Kara _ .”

“He said he was impressed by me - that compersion was one thing, but he could only imagine his wife dating a superhero without feeling inadequate. And if I ever needed to talk about it, I could talk to him, and he would be, like, a safe space...”

“Oh my god.” Lena felt a riotous delight coursing through her. “Because he could sympathize with navigating an open relationship, too?”

Kara went limp, her nervous energy gone at last. “Yep. And he started telling me all about his  _ new _ wife.”

Tears were streaming down Lena’s face as Kara spoke, plodding out word after miserable word. “Oh my god, he wants to be your non-monogamy mentor.”

“I swear, it was like something had come unstuck in him, like all this personal stuff came tumbling out. He said that we could come to his munch, and I just wanted the conversation to end, so I said yes. Lena, what on earth is a munch?”

Lena wiped a tear from her cheek. “It’s a meet up, baby, for folks in... certain specific communities. To meet each other in a non-sexual context.”

Kara rolled her face towards Lena, eyes narrowing. “How... do you know that?”

Lena smirked. “Apparently you don’t like to hear about salacious personal histories, Kara Danvers.”

Kara’s eyes went wide. “Have you been to a munch? Wait, were you ever polygamous?”

“No, I have not married multiple people, to my knowledge. But I was part of a very complicated relationship flow chart in college.” Lena smiled. “And with Jack, he understood I needed certain things from women, just like he needed certain things from men.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“I feel very sheltered all of a sudden,” said Kara, rolling her face back to the ceiling. “Am I the most boring person you've ever dated?”

“There’s nothing boring with monogamy, darling. Frankly, I find it’s much more my speed.” She leaned forward to give Kara a smooch. “You meet my needs quite nicely.”

Kara perked up at the comment, a gleam crossing her eye. “I live to serve.” She grabbed Lena by the waist, dragging her onto her lap.

Lena tried her best not to giggle. “And you’re very good at it, thank you.”

They melted into a kiss for a long moment, until Kara finally pulled away. “I can hear you thinking about something.”

Lena grinned, caught. “Well... I was just considering... it would be a rather tidy solution.”

Kara frowned. “What would be?”

“Being... open.”

A range of expressions warred on Kara’s face, so Lena immediately clarified. “I mean, clearly you and I are not always able to keep our hands to ourselves.”

The crinkle firmly settled between Kara’s eyes. “You’re very hot. I can’t exactly be expected not to take advantage of it.”

“And I love your instincts,” said Lena, chasing the comment with a long kiss. “But it can mean complications like this, because I’m not dating Supergirl - I’m dating Kara Danvers.”

The crinkle deepened. “Are you proposing...”

“What if I was dating both?” Her brow waggled. “Openly?”

The crinkle, apparently, had not even begun to reach maximum depths. “Like...”

Lena spread her hands out behind Kara’s shoulders, gesturing at an imagined headline. “I can see the title now - Love In the Twenty-First Century. National City’s Power Throuple.”

Kara shook her head. “That can't be a real word.”

“Imagine how eager Snapper would be to publish it. ‘Lena Luthor loves to challenge conventions - of science, of the board room, of romance...’”

“Okay, yes,” Kara conceded, “it would be a smoke screen on our... indiscretions.”

“It's more than that,” said Lena, nuzzling Kara's neck. “I could kiss you - every you - every time. No more hiding.”

“But wouldn't people think...” Kara swallowed. “Wouldn't that mean people would think I'm also dating Supergirl?”

“Hot,” said Lena immediately.

“Not hot! Weird!” Kara leaned away enough to look Lena in the eye. “Would _ you _ date yourself?”

Lena weighed the thought, head waving side to side as she considered. “You know I'm not always my own biggest fan... But I'm also aware of what I look like...”

“Never mind,” said Kara immediately. “Okay, let's say this. It's certainly... a way to address the issue, if it comes up. But maybe we try to have a less affectionate relationship between Lena Luthor and Supergirl first.”

Lena snorted. “Can you keep your cape to yourself?”

Kara smiled. “I always do my best, don't I?”

And they laughed into their kiss.

Ten minutes later, Kara pulled away again. “What are you thinking about now?”

Lena blushed, caught. “I am certainly not thinking very hard about dating both Kara Danvers and Supergirl, not at all.”

Kara grinned, lifting her girlfriend off the sofa. “Clearly I need to do a better job of distracting you.”

Lena wrapped her arms around Kara Zor El's neck. “I think you're up to the challenge.”

**Author's Note:**

> My mom read the zine and then I had to explain to her what a munch was, so yeah, I suffered for my art.
> 
> I'm bossbeth on tumblr and heybossbeth on twitter - come say howdy!
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, please consider contributing to The Trevor Project and Transgender Law Center. Our family needs your support. Thanks!


End file.
